Book Review: Truth, Lies & Advertising

Book: Truth, Lies & Advertising
Author: Jon Steel

What is an account planner? What kind of job is it? What does it take to be a good account planner? Jon Steel raises these questions in his book, and answers all of them. First, he says what not to do, then he gives advice on what you should do based on examples from his personal experience.

I like the fact that Steel admits that these are only suggestions in his book, not laws that you have to follow. That's because each situation is different, especially when dealing with people and brands.

The stories that he uses are extremely entertaining, and paint a perfect picture in your mind about what an account planner has to go through. These stories provided a good flow to the book, and made it quite easy and fun to read.

Each chapter in the book presents a different problem that an account planner must face pretty much in the order that it happens. It makes the book feel like a whole campaign, from beginning to end, even though there are lot's of stories in it from many different campaigns that the author worked on.

This book may have "Account Planning" in the sub-title, but it is definitely not just for people who want to be account planners. Creatives should read it too because it provides really good advice, and because it describes how hard it is to get a campaign off the ground.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in advertising because it is fun to read and provides valuable insight into agency life.

Now, you may be thinking, "This book was published in 1998. It's out of date!" It may be older, but it's still extremely useful. Things change in the business all the time. But, human interactions remain the same, whether it is face to face, like focus groups, or really weird methods of research.

Read this book. It will help you get a better perspective on account planning. But don't just read it for that, read it because it is a really good and fun book to read.

That's all for now!

Book Review: Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.

Book: Hey Whipple, Squeeze This.
Author: Luke Sullivan

I read this book a while ago, and I finally got around to reviewing it (I was very busy at school). I'm glad I finally decided to review it, because there is a new edition coming out in the year.

Let me just say this: Wow.

I had to buy this book because it was recommended reading for school. I bought last January, just as I was beginning to study advertising. It sat on my shelf for a few months because I just didn't really care to read advertising books at the time, unless a teacher assigned a reading.

When I finally did decide to read it, I couldn't put it down, which, looking back, is probably a bad thing because I probably should have taken notes, but whatever.

I hear that this is the best book that was written about about advertising of all time (my teachers have said that). As of right now, I have to agree (although there is another book that I'm chomping at the bit to review which is a close second). Sullivan describes everything, from what it's like to be an advertising creative, to how to sit down and write ads. Probably my favourite chapter is the one in which he describes some horror stories about clients. It was probably the funniest part of the whole book.

Sullivan uses excellent examples of great ads throughout his book to hammer his points home, and he has no shame in showing off the first ad he ever did. I've got to say, he's come a long way. He became one of the best copywriters in the business.

Whipple was a lot of fun to read. I especially love the short paragraphs and the sub-heads: those really break up the book and let it flow better. I can't stand books with really long chapters and no sub-heads; you never feel like you get anywhere when you are reading them. But, I digress.

If you want to learn a lot about advertising in one read, then read this book. It is a must for anyone who is either in the business, or someone who aspires to be. Even account people should read it. It's that important.

I'm looking forward to the new edition because there will be lots of great information all about new media and digital packed into it. That was the only thing that was lacking in this edition. But you can't blame the author, they weren't as big at the time.

This book is a lot of fun, and it sure makes the ad business sound like fun too.

That's all for now.

The Ad Bits Holiday Gift Guide

Well, it's that time of the year. The time to spend lot's of money giving out stuff that you're not sure people will even like. So, to avert a disaster, I've decided to put together a gift guide geared towards advertising people (professionals and students). I think I put a pretty good list together that should suit the needs of anyone looking for a really cool gift to give an advertising person. It's all after the break.

A Night at the ADCC Awards

So a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend the Advertising and Design Club of Canada's awards show and after party. I apologize that I didn't blog about this sooner, I've just been extremely busy. School has just ramped up several notches, so it's been hard to get too much else done.

I also thought I would try out an app that I downloaded recently from the Android Marketplace which is some cool retro camera app. That's why the picture looks so interesting.

I wasn't allowed to take any pictures during the show, but I thought I would post some of the swag that you got if you were able to attend. Notice the really well designed book and posters with a common theme. Pretty awesome. The contents of the annual are really good too, of course.

So, on to the awards. It was an interesting ceremony to to say the least. Some really great stuff was honoured, some it design, and some of it advertising. Wow, I'm good at stating the obvious sometimes.

The speeches had to be the best part. They were the shortest speeches that I've ever heard. I guess I'm just used to the ones that you hear during things like the Academy Awards. The designers didn't say anything, and the ad people pretty much just thanked the client. The speech of the night went to a writer who had to accept an award on behalf of the agency for best cinematography in an ad. This is what she said:
"I'm accepting this award on behalf of the agency, because clearly, as a writer, I had a lot to do with the cinematography of this commercial."
I kid you not. It was pure awesome, and completely hilarious.

It was a pretty short awards show. Quite a few awards were given out, but I think the whole show lasted around an hour. The big winners were Rethink and Leo Burnett Toronto. They cleaned up. Leo Burnett Toronto also won agency of the year.

Overall, it was a fun night, with a lot of great Canadian work in the advertising and design fields being honoured. I would like to congratulate all of the winners, even though it's a little late.

That's all for now!

Book Review: The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy

Book: The Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy
Author: Tom Monahan

Read this book. Seriously. If you are serious about going into creative advertising, or any job that involves some sort of problem solving, then you need to read this book.

This is essentially a brainstorming book, with all kinds of different ways you can brainstorm, either individually, or in a group. The names of some of the techniques are wacky, and will entice you to the point that you don't read the book in order.

You shouldn't read this book in order anyway. Read any section that you want at any time. It makes it much more fun. You will find yourself referring back to this book quite often, especially when you realize that these brainstorming techniques actually work.

Besides all of the brainstorming techniques, Monahan also introduces you to the idea of talent vs. creativity. I won't spoil it for you, but I know a lot of people will breathe a sigh of relief when they read that section.

Also intertwined throughout the book are little quotes from famous creative people and testimonials from people who took Monahan's course in brainstorming. This makes for great breaks in the action, and throws you some curve balls that make you think. Sometimes, no matter how great a book can be, you can almost get lulled to sleep by the act of reading (at least, that happens to me sometimes). But with all these little breaks that Monahan puts in, that will not happen  and your eyes will end up moving all over the page.

My favourite feature that this book has are what Monahan calls Cheat Notes. They summarize the chapter that you just read, so if you forget something and don't want to read the whole chapter again, you can just read the Cheat notes instead of skim.

I found myself using some of the techniques that Monahan described in my own work, wither in a group, or individually. They were very helpful and made for some good fun. A few pretty good ideas came of those sessions too.

I highly recommend this book. If you are in any job where you have to problem solve all the time, then this book is for you. This isn't just an advertising book, this is a Do-It-Yourself Lobotomy.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter for even more insights into what it's like being an advertising student. That's all for now!

I can't get this ad out of my head

Some ads are really catchy just like music to the point that it kind of gets stuck in your head. Well, at least I picked a great ad to get stuck in my head. The writing in it is absolutely brilliant. Check it out below and enjoy.

I Hope Long Copy Isn't Dead

You just don't see a lot of long copy ads any more. Most of the ads I've seen recently have been visual puns or ads with only a little bit of copy. I really hope it's not the end of long copy. I guess advertisers think that people have short attention spans and they don't like read anything, but wouldn't you figure that if someone is interested in something, they would take the time to read it? Just a thought.

This is a short blog today. More will be coming in the next few days. If anyone has some favourite long copy ads, let me know, I want to see them. In the mean time that's all for now. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insight into what it's like to be a student of advertising.

Book Review: Unleashing The Ideavirus

Book: Unleashing The Ideavirus
Author: Seth Godin

Unleashing The Ideavirus is not a new book. In fact, its over 10 years old. But, a lot of the information in it is still relevant today because of how important the Internet is to peoples' lives.

The book consists of four sections: Why Ideas Matter, How To Unleash An Ideavirus, The Ideavirus Formula, and Case Studies and Riffs. All of the sections in the book do an excellent job of explaining what an ideavirus actually is (I won't spoil it for you, you will actually have to read the book). There are numerous examples given, which help illustrate Godin's point.

The examples do feel dated, probably because I remember that stuff when I was kid and started to first use the Internet. However, they are still relevant because of how important viral marketing has become in recent years.

Overall, Unleashing The Ideavirus is a great book because it was written at the still somewhat early stages of the Internet. Seth Godin is extremely good at predicting things that will happen in the market, but he did make a couple of mistakes that no one could have foreseen at the time, and upon reading them, did make me chuckle a little bit. The first was the way he talked about Palm and what a small company did to promote its services with the Palm Pilot. We all know what happened to the Palm Pilot, and to Palm. But, at the time, both were huge. The second thing was about the Toyota Prius. Godin comments that when the Prius first came out, that it looked boring, and just like any other car. He didn't think that it would take off both because of the look of the car and because a hybrid electric vehicle was a radical idea at the time. We all know what happened here too. Toyota redesigned the Prius and it became fairly popular.

I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about viral marketing.

A couple of other things, not related to the book. I know that I haven't been blogging much recently. I've just been too busy and I've been sick too, and very tired. I never finished blogging about Advertising Week, but don't worry, I've got plenty of stuff just waiting to be blogged about from that great event. That will be coming this week. I just felt that I should post a book review since I hadn't done that in a while. Until next time. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into what it's like to be an advertising student.

Advertising Week 2011 Day 1

Wow, what an amazing day! I went to 4 Advertising Week events today, and saw a keynote speech given to my class by Rob Reilly, CCO of CP+B. I've posted some pictures, but you will notice that a couple of the events are missing and that's because my hands were shaking so my pictures turned out blurry.

The first event that I attended was a seminar called "Winning the Marketing War". It took place in the Reuters building and included a panel of CMOs from Time Magazine, FedEx, CVS Pharmacy, GE. They talked about a lot of things that were obvious to, at least from all my classes about target audiences at school. The panelists stressed the value tht PR can bring to a company and how important it is to the relationship with the customer. They also discussed how important analytics were, and how it is more efficient to consolidate your insight gathering tools when you are a large company. The most interesting part of the presentation was when the panelists were discussing what type of person they would look to hire for their marketing departments. The attributes that they would consider are:

• The person needs to be able to build an infrastrucure
• The person needs to be creative
• The person needs to analyze and be able to change things on the fly
• Curiosity
• Good listening skills

They would look for any one or more attributes at a time.
I had to leave this panel early so that I could get to another one, which was quite a distance away.

The next panel that I attended was called "Bravo's Got Reading Down To A Science". This seminar was all about neuromarketing. Neuromarketing is basically scientists hook you up to a brain scanning machine while you are watching, listening to, or reading advertisements and observe which types of the brain light up.

The Panel for "Bravo's Got Reading Down to a Science".

This was a really interesting seminar. Apparently, the first experiments in neuromarketing were on dead fish a few years ago. Now, many companies are using the technique to help give people a better brand experience. It is best used with integrated media because each media is different and serves a different purpose. I got to ask a question at this panel. I asked if consumers found this method creepy, and what companies were doing to ease their fears of it. The panel thought it was a great question. I got some good responses to it. One panelist said that people are scared at first when they see the equipment, but then they don't even realize that they have the stuff on, and in some cases, they fall asleep with the scanning equipment on. Another panelist said that people shouldn't be freaked out because what they are doing is trying to improve the user experience to make peoples' lives more enjoyable.

This panel was really great. Neuromarketing is the future of advertising and branding research.

The next panel that I attended was called "The Next 9 Years". It was hosted by Nick Law, CCO of R/GA and Barry Wacksman, Chief Growth Officer at R/GA. This seminar was all about how digital shop R/GA has changed its business model every 9 years as technology has changed. They talked a lot about how brands have grown, especially the model that they call Function Integration. Brands that have done this include Apple, Nike, Google, BMW, and Amazon.

Nick Law and Barry Wacksman talking about "The Next 9 Years".

For their next 9 years, R/Ga wants to become the World's first functionally integrated agency, meaning that they don't just do one thing and buy up a bunch of stuff. They want to be able to build brand experiences for their clients. They need a lot of different people on their team besides technologists. Nick Law put it perfectly when he said: "How diverse must we get to get good?" He was talking about how they want to provide the best brand experiences in the World, but that it can't be done unless they have a team full of different specialists who can bring something different to the table.

This panel was really interesting. I had to leave early, though, to get to the next seminar, which was quite a distance away.

The next seminar was probably my favourite. It was called "USA Today Presents: Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity". It was all about Droga5's campaign for Jay-Z's book: Decoded. This panel included David Droga, the founder of Droga5, Julie Grau from Random House Publishing, Eric Hadley, the General Manager of Worldwide Marketing for Microsoft and Bing, and John Meneilly, Jay-Z's manager. They spoke about how the campaign came together, and about how people worldwide got involved. What they did for the campaign was they put every page of Jay-Z's book outside somehow, on a billboard, on plates in a restaurant, in a swimming pool, etc. The places also had to be relevant to what was on the page in the book. Bing integrated a campaign and game for people to try to find where all these advertisements were, after a clue was given out on a social media site. It was an unbelievable and amazing campaign. I can see why it won the Cannes Lion Grand Prix.

The panel at the Cannes Lions event.

I got to ask a question in this panel. I asked everyone what the biggest challenge was for the campaign other than the budget, and if there were any major disagreements between parties because it was such a big undertaking. David Droga said that time was the biggest challenge. They had to crank out the ads pretty fast, and they could have done even more if they had a couple of months for each ad. Julie Grau said that people in her office would say to her: "I'll believe it when I see it," when she would explain what they were going to do for the campaign.

This panel was amazing. I really enjoyed it. It was extremely insightful, and it was an honour to be able to ask a question and have it answered by such giants in so many industries.

I was quickly off to my class's keynote talk by Rob Reilly. This was a really great talk. He answered many questions, from how to get into the business, to my question about writer's block. I can't say enough things about how amazing that was. Rob Reilly was a really nice guy and thanked everyone, and told everyone who asked a question that they asked a great question. It was a really enlightening talk and a lot of fun. I need to thank my professor, Anthony Kalamut, for organizing this event. It was amazing and super cool.

As you can see, this was a really long day, but a really fun one. I have a lot more on tap for tomorrow as well. I will keep you up to date on everything. So far, Advertising Week has been unbelievable. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights. That's all for now.

I'm in New York City!

Wow, I can't believe it! I'm actually in New York for Advertising Week! Ad Week doesn't start until tomorrow, so today we are all just hanging out. I have to say, I wasn't sure that I was going to make it to New York. The bus ride was kind of nuts. We the the curb a couple of times and hit the side of the Lincoln Tunnel as well.

Here are some pictures of my arrival, and some of Time Square.

The bus hitting the curb while trying to make a turn.

New York City from across the river.

A taxi cab in the Lincoln Tunnel.

Yes, Canadians: There is a Timmy's in New York!

A fender bender in Time Square.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope you enjoyed these pictures. There will hopefully be many more. I can't wait for Advertising Week to start tomorrow. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into the life of an ad student.

Advertising Week in New York

I can't believe it's finally here: Advertising Week! I've waited a long time to go. I first heard about it at orientation last fall, when I didn't have a clue about advertising, and immediately, I wanted to go to New York and take part.

It's going to be a long bus ride down: about 10 hours from Toronto. We will be leaving at around midnight tomorrow, and we will get down there by about 9:00 am-10:00 am Sunday.

Not only am I going to be attending Advertising Week, but I will also be going on some tours of a few of the top agencies in the city thanks to the advertising program coordinator at Seneca, Anthony Kalamut. A big thank you for arranging everything. Not only that, but our whole class is getting a keynote speech by the CCO at CP+B, Rob Reilly.

I will do my best to blog and tweet over the course of the week and hopefully upload some photos and videos of my experience during Advertising Week. I am very excited about this opportunity.

Hopefully the next time I blog, I will be in New York! Until next time.

Coming Up With Ideas

It can be tough to come up ideas for ads. So much stuff has already been done. They also can't be random ideas- these have to hit the target market exactly.

So why am I writing about this? Well, it's probably because I've had some trouble coming up with ideas lately. I chalk that up to me trying too hard. I want to make great ads, but when you think about to hard, then nothing happens and you end up beating yourself up about it and telling yourself that your not creative.

Probably the best thing to do is just leave your work alone and come back to it later. I found that after being frustrated for hours, I took a break and did something completely different. The ideas still didn't come thought because I was still subconsciously thinking about it. When I started talking to someone, BAM! I suddenly got a few ideas that I could work on. Simple as that.

When you have writer's block, don't think too hard or don't think about what you are working on at all. It worked for me, that's for sure.

A couple other things of note: I now have a YouTube channel, so you can check that out. Just search for GalacticGirlx2 and you can check out a whole bunch of videos that I have favourited. Some of these could make it onto my blog sometime, you never know.

Also, Advertising Week is a week away, and I will be attending! Hopefully, I will have time to blog and give updates about what is going on there. It's going to be a lot of fun.

So that's it for now. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 to get even more insights into what it's like being an advertising student, or as my teacher says, a student of advertising.

An essay on the digital space

We all know what advertising campaigns used to be like. You would see an ad in a magazine, on a billboard, or on TV, and then if you so choose, you would go and buy whatever product or service was being advertised that caught your attention. All of that is changing. Over the last decade or so, a new beast had reared its head. Digital and interactive media have changed the advertising landscape dramatically. Not only can the consumer now follow a brand on various social media websites, but they can also interact with the brand, whether it be commenting on a blog post on a brand’s website, or creating content about that particular brand. Consumers can also get their content instantly.

PVRs have allowed consumers to skip commercials that they feel are intruding on their TV time, but now that advertisers post their ads on YouTube for all to see, many consumers flock there to see the spots. Digital and interactive advertising have allowed consumers to determine what content they are exposed to and when.

Digital and interactive have made this an on-demand society. This can be seen not only in advertising, but in the entertainment industry as well. Now you can watch television shows on your TV whenever you want, not just online. Everything is available 24-7 for consumers to enjoy when and where they want it. This empowerment has given consumers a voice for themselves; they don’t have to listen to what the advertisers and ad agencies have to say anymore in the same way.

The consumers’ perception of a brand has changed because of digital and interactive as well. Digital and interactive have completely changed PR. Brands can now be assaulted online by consumers if word gets out that they are doing something that is ethically questionable.

Digital and interactive really has changed the face of advertising. Advertising is no longer a broadcast, it is a discussion between the brand and the consumer. The interactions will only get deeper as technology continues to evolve. We have only scratched the surface in what kinds of advertising can be done online.

Major Shake Up at Ogilvy Toronto

This is pretty crazy news: The chief co-creative directors at Ogilvy Toronto, Nancy Vonk and Janet Kestin have resigned to launch their own training company, called Swim. They plan to train creatives in agencies, starting with Ogilvy Toronto. Swim launches next month.

Ogilvy named Ian MacKellar as the new chief creative officer of their Toronto office in order to replace the spots that were vacated by Vonk and Kestin. He has really big shoes to fill, but I think that he more than capable of doing a good job. Only time will tell though.

I thought this was an interesting story because it really changes the creative landscape. How will brands like Dove fare in the hands of a different creative chief? This story is definitely worth keeping an eye on in the long term.

The original link can be found here.

Wheel of Concept

I'm back with another blog! Just as the weekend is almost over too.

I've wanted to blog about this for a while, but I just didn't have the time. The good folks at Tribal DDB came up with this thing called the Wheel of Concept. You just simply enter a brand name, spin the wheel and it will spit out an idea that you can use for a campaign. It's a lot of fun to play around with.

As an example, I typed in the brand name Rust-Oleum, and according to this application, I should make a campaign that uses augmented reality. I guess if you are stuck on something, you could use it, but I don't think it would be that practical. I used the example I previously mentioned several weeks ago when I first found out about the Wheel of Concept, and it spit out exactly the same idea. Of course according to the website, if you believe that you can come up with better ideas than they have, you should work at Tribal DDB. This does almost sound like a recruiting tool.

Recruiting tool or not, the Wheel of Concept is definitely fun to play around with. You can check it out for yourself here.

That's all for now. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into what it's like to be an advertising student.

Book Review: The Idea Writers

Book: The Idea Writers
Author: Teressa Iezzi

It's been a while since I last did a book review. I was so busy at school that I didn't have time to sit down and write one. But, the time has finally come for another review. I am pleased to share with you my opinion of the Advertising book called "The Idea Writers".

This book is all about copywriting, and more specifically, copywriting in the digital age. The author uses many examples of mostly recent successful campaigns to illustrate her point that a copywriter writes more than just some television commercials and magazine ads. A copywriter is someone who has to come up with ideas that can be used in a fully integrated campaign, especially in the new age of marketing.

In addition to highlighting some of the great campaigns, Iezzi also describes what the copywriter's job entails, as well as what should go into making an ad, including originality, and what life is like in the business.

Iezzi interviewed many copywriters, art directors, and creative directors in order to write this book. The juiciest parts are the various opinions and experiences of the industry professionals. It was great reading about how some of the best campaigns came together right from the people who worked on that particular campaign.

I have two favourite chapters in this book. The first, titled "Life in Adland" was particularly cool because the author asked several copywriters to describe what an average day is like for them for one of the sections in the chapter. Two out of the three wrote down their day as a timeline, including little details like hitting the snooze button a couple of times, and what they ordered for lunch. I thought that was a great touch and it gives you a feel for how hectic life can be like at an agency.

The second chapter that I really liked is called "Bringing Ideas to Life". This is the chapter that goes through some of the best campaigns in the digital age, and a couple of classic campaigns including the famous Economist ad campaign. This was a very enlightening chapter for several reasons. The copywriters, art directs, and creative directors described the process of how they came up with the ideas, most of the time, they were very spontaneous. It also described how much research went on behind the scenes, and how useful that research was in generating the idea.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. The amount of research that went into writing it was quite apparent. It was extremely informative on the topic of how copywriting has changed since the 1960s, and even has boxes in some of chapters with career tips in them that could be quite useful. There is so much good advice in this book from both the author and the various creatives that were interviewed which could definitely help aspiring copywriters. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in working on the creative side of the ad business. Not only is this book very informative, but it is also fun to read.

I hope enjoyed this review. That's all until next time. And don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into the life of an advertising student.

Back in Action

Today was the start of the new school year. I had a glorious 2 weeks off. A lot of great stuff will be happening this semester, including a school trip to New York to attend Advertising Week. It will be another busy term, so I hopefully will have to time to blog about all kinds of advertising stuff as well as school.

Hopefully tomorrow I will post a book review. I've read quite a few advertising and marketing books over the summer, so I have lots to review. This is really just a short update, and I'm looking forward to blogging more often.

Random Stuff

Wow, it's been a while since I last posted a real blog. I was so busy at school that I couldn't do anything else. All the hard work paid off though, and I did really well. The pitch at Cundari was amazing and lot's of fun. I learned a lot this semester about myself and how much work it takes to put a campaign together.

I'm looking forward to next semester, which starts in September. Ah, the joys of going a year straight without a real break.

I will be posting more frequently now. More book reviews and articles will be forthcoming.

This weekend, I will be attending FanExpo in Toronto as I always do. If I see anything relating to advertising there, I will be sure to post it.

It feels great to be back on the blogosphere. That's all for now.

Survey Part 2

As promised, here is the second part of the survey.

Click here to take survey

Again, thank you to everyone who completes the surveys. You help and cooperation had been greatly appreciated.

Survey

It's been a while since I last blogged. That's because I've been very busy at school. One of the projects I've been working on is a research report about downloading software and digital media from the Internet. I made a quantitative survey that anyone can answer. It would be a great help of I got some responses back. The survey is below:

Click here to take survey

This is the first part of the survey. I had to break it up into two parts because I was only allowed a maximum of 10 questions per survey from the website that I used. The second part will be up soon as well.

Thank you to everyone who participates!

Book Review: ZAG

Book: ZAG
Author: Marty Neumeier

ZAG is the follow-up book to The Brand Gap (see my review of The Brand Gap here). Unlike the previous book, where Neumeier focuses on 5 disciplines of branding (differentiate, collaborate, innovate, validate, and cultivate), ZAG only focuses on the first discipline: differentiate.

ZAG uses the same types of layouts, illustrations and charts as the Brand Gap, so it makes for an easy transition from one book to the next. It is also quite short, a little shorter than the Brand Gap. That's a good thing. Neumeier was able to condense everything about differentiation into only 150 pages. That's pretty amazing. The wording is very clear and concise, making ZAG an easy to read book.

The illustrations and charts that the author has included are fun to look at and relate directly to what is written on the page. If you don't look at these illustrations or charts, you are missing a very important part of the book.

Instead of 5 parts to this book, like the Brand Gap, there are only 3: Finding your ZAG, Designing your ZAG, and Renewing your ZAG. Neumeier describes everything, from how to name your company or service, to the latest trends that you could jump on in order to drive your zag. According to Neumeier, a trend is something powerful, and it could make your brand even better and more powerful if you can ride more than one trend at a time.

The best part of this book for me, was when Neumeier was describing what a house of brands is, and the difference between that and a branded house. It directly relates to something that I'm working on right now, and actually made it quite clear. That section alone opened my eyes and is helping me quite a bit and giving me a different angle from which to view my problem.

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. It was a terrific follow-up to the Brand Gap, and I would recommend it to anyone that needs to either find a branding strategy, or look for a new approach to their brand. What a great read. 

Book Review: Perfect Pitch

Title: Perfect Pitch
Author: Jon Steel

It's that time again- time for another book review! This time, I am reviewing Perfect Pitch by Jon Steel. This is a book all about presentations. There are tips on how to present, tips on how not to present, and case studies from the worst presentations (the prosecution of O.J. Simpson), to the best presentations (the pitch by London for the 2012 games).

This book was such a joy to read. Steel's writing style sucks you in, and you end up not wanting to put the book down. His own personal examples from his experience were really interesting, and the advice he gives can be applied to other professions as well, not just advertising.

Some of the advice though, from some of the pitches where he went all out, would be hard to follow, especially for a student with almost no budget. But, that is where you get creative. It can also be hard for a student because he describes pitches that can last for a few hours, while in my experience, pitching for school projects has only lasted for about 15 minutes. Steel does say though, that timing is very important, and sometimes a short pitch can be better.

He had so many great nuggets of advice in his book, from PowerPoint to what order to present the information. The best tips though, were what not to do during a presentation (which I have probably been guilty of in the past). Some of these were surprising, too. I won't spoil them for you, you'll have to find out on your own.

The best presentation advice I can give, is for you to read this book.

I hope that you enjoyed the review. I will probably have another book review up tomorrow as well. That would be on the book Zag, by the same author as the Brand Gap, which I reviewed last week.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2. That's all for now!

Weekly Wrap Up

I'm back again after a short hiatus. I know that I promised a book review for yesterday, and I apologize that I didn't deliver (I was feeling a little under the weather). There will FOR SURE be a book review up later today- just let me get some homework done first. In the mean time, here are some articles on what's happened in the ad world this week:

Top Management Shake-Up at Havas Digital

Ogilvy PR Faces Turbulent Times with Unilever Brands

Should Agencies Be Worried About Heineken's New Deal with Google?

I hope you enjoy these articles, they are an interesting read. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter @GalacticGirlx2 for even more.

That's all for now!

Distractions

It's been a whole 2 days since I last posted, but a lot has been going on for me. I'm pretty frustrated right in the research department, but that will hopefully change soon. It can be really hard to approach people and ask questions.

I will have another book review up tomorrow. I will be reviewing the book Perfect Pitch.

That's all for now.

Interesting mini-story

So, Yesterday, I went to cash in a bond that I had, which I had forgotten about and matured way back in 2003. The woman that was helping me out was really nice, then she asked me what I was taking in school. I told her that I was an advertising student. She thought that was great. And guess what? She actually worked in the business for a while for Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto, and got to work with the guy that game up with the famous Smarties commercials. She even got to meet David Ogilvy, the man himself! How cool is that?

It's amazing how many people have actually been in the business. Everyone has some kind of cool story too.

Just to kill two birds with one stone here, I've come across the second BMW video in the series on YouTube. Here it is:



Another great ad by Cundari. That's all for now from me.

Book Review: Rethink Reinvent Reposition

Title: Rethink Reinvent Reposition
Authors: Leo Hopf and William Welter
Time for another book review (I read fast)!

Instead of using the full title during this review, I think it will be much easier just to refer to it as Re^3. Re^3 is about how to renew your business. The authors describe at length 12 strategies that can be employed to do just that, especially if your business is in trouble. They also outline traps to avoid, and how to build the next generation of leaders.

Re^3 seemed kind of dry. Probably because this was written for managers and executives of large companies, and not for advertising students. That's not to say that this book was bad by any means, I just think that the project management the authors were talking about in the book was not geared toward smaller businesses or people who are managing small projects. I also felt that the authors were talking down to me when I was reading the book; they did not feel like they were on the same level at all. I would have liked some content that was geared more toward small businesses and small projects instead of almost always using examples of big companies. This made me feel like I was not in their league.

There were definitely a few things that I liked about Re^3. The first thing was the case studies. The authors picked case studies that exemplified the strategies that they were explaining in the book. This was helpful, so that I could actually visualize how each strategy could work. I also really liked the chapter that was about traps that needed to be avoided during the renewal process. I felt that this chapter was probably the most helpful in the book, because it outlined some very common mistakes that managers tend to fall into, and that you should always be on the lookout so that you do not do the same thing.

I'm not sure that I would recommend this book for someone in the ad business, unless they were a high ranking executive. But, for someone like me, I just don't fit the target group that the authors were going after.

I hope that you enjoyed this review. Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights. Let me know what you think.

Until next time!

Check this out

Back with another blog this morning! I found a pretty cool link, and thought that I would share it. It's from Ad Freak, and what they deem to be the 10 funniest ads ever. Remember, the ads target different target groups, so you most likely find all of them funny. My favourites were number 3 and number 1 on the list. Check out the link below:

Ad Freak's 10 Funniest Commercials of All Time

Remember, you might have to move our cursor over the link in order to see it.

One last thing. I will have another book review up later today. These reviews will not come as frequently as they have been, but I have some time off school, so relaxing has been part of that.

Until next time.

Book Review: The Brand Gap

Title: The Brand Gap
Author: Marty Neumeier

Guess what? It's time for another book review! This time, I will be reviewing The Brand Gap.

When you first pick it up, you think: wow, this is a small book. How can there be much that's useful in it? To answer that question, you have to read it, or just read my review.

This book is amazing. It is short and to the point, and it has a lot to say for such a small book. It was very easy to read, and it provided great examples and fun pictures to go along with it. It even has a brand glossary at the back, so that you can look up the terminology that you need later for reference.

This book is broken up into 5 "chapters". I put that in quotation marks because there are all kinds of sub-headings in between. Each chapter focuses on a different part of the strategy needed in order for you to be successful at branding. It takes something that appears to be a daunting task, and makes sound a whole lot simpler.

The writing style is very easy to read and understand. The author uses great analogies so that the reader doesn't get confused and can actually get it. There's nothing worse than when you're trying to read a book, and it just doesn't speak to you or seem very clear. Luckily, that is not the case with The Brand Gap.

I enjoyed this book so much that I just ordered the follow up by the same author called Zag. I would recommend this book to anyone in the industry and any advertising student, whether they want to go business or creative.

The Brand Gap does what it says: it tells you how to bridge the gap between strategy and design. What a great read.

Don't forget to follow me on Twitter: @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights and opinions.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Some new creative campaigns

After a 2 day hiatus, I'm back and ready to blog. I will be blogging more frequently over the next week or so, because it is Study week at school (yay, time off!). I thought I would do a weekly wrap-up of a few really cool campaigns that came out this week. Check them out below:

Dead bees try to help remaining ones live

Mr. Peanut's Stunt Double

Nokia Dancing Dolls

I hope you find these fun. I will try to do a weekly wrap-up every Saturday. This could be news that I like, or some cool new ads. Feel free to comment and let me know what you want in these wrap-ups.

I will hopefully have another book review posted today. It will be on The Brand Gap. I'll let you know what I think of the book in my review, not going to spoil it now.

Edit: Just a heads up: you might have to run your cursor over the links in order to see them.

Until the next post!

This is the way to make a car ad

A lot of commercials for cars these days are pretty boring. They talk about the horsepower and the maneuverability, etc, etc, but they don't really show it- other than hugging a few tight curves. This ad for BMW that Cundari made shows a car actually threading the needle, and really shows off how maneuverable and precise a BMW is. This is probably the best car ad I've seen in a long time. Now this is how you do it, and stand out from the crowd at the same time.



This is the first in a series of spots, and I can't wait to see the next ones.

Advertising Research

It's crazy how much research is needed in order to construct an ad or a campaign. It's all about finding out who the target group is, and literally, everything about them. You need to spot trends and link those trends back to each target group too. It seems that sometimes when I do an assignment, I am only scratching the surface of everything.

Great research leads to great ads. It's only great if you know your target group.

Sometimes when I am doing several assignments at once, I get some of the research mixed up. It can be hard to keep everything straight because there is just so much information to gather and understand.

I should have another book review up next week. It will be reading week, so I should be able to make better, more insightful posts than this. Lack of sleep is really getting in the way right now.

Later!

Cundari, burritos, and evil printers

Wow, yesterday was a crazy day! I went downtown to visit Cundari, an advertising agency in Toronto. I got to ask the account executive in charge of the project that my team has been assigned a bunch of questions. He was really helpful. Everyone at the agency was super nice- we even met the owner, and got a tour. It was a great experience.

Lunch was also a great experience. I finally got to try out Burrito Boyz, and I have to say that the food there was amazing, and priced very reasonably as well.  It was crazy busy there, and we had to wait for our food because of the crowd and because there make everything fresh. It was worth the wait. There are so many great restaurants in the area around Cundari. It was hard to choose a place, but I really wanted to try Burrito Boyz out because of all the great things that I've heard about them.

Yesterday was a really long day. I couldn't blog because I had so much stuff that needed to be done. I had a huge problem with a printer that I needed to use, and that issue carried over to this morning. Why can't everything work smoothly? Why do there have to be so many hiccups? Just once, I want that printer to work fine. It ate my money. I kept trying to print, and then it would just say printer ready and not do anything. At least it was finally fixed, but it gave me hell in the process.

That is all for now. I hope to have another blog up tomorrow.

Book Review: Rework

So here is my first book review. It's all about Rework.

Rework was written by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hanson, the founders of 37signals. It is essentially lots of little tidbits of advice in many areas of how to run your business. Why is an advertising student reviewing a business book? Well, this is because planning and management skills are important in any business, for any project. I bought this book because one of my teachers recommended it during my IMC class. I figured that because I am team captain on the IMC project, that I should go check it out; anything to help make me and my team run smoother. Now that I have finished the book, I decided to share my thoughts on it.
I really like how easy it was to read. The chapters were short and to the point, with no filler in between, with really great business examples throughout the book. The chapter titles were really funny. Some of them included:

• Make a Dent in the Universe
• Scratch You Own Itch
• Nobody Likes Plastic Flowers
• Drug Dealers Get It Right
• Strangers at a Cocktail Party

The names alone piqued my curiosity when I first picked it up at the book store. The illustrations in the book were really great as well. I like how they went hand in hand with the chapter titles.
Another thing I liked: that the book doesn't talk down to you. The authors wrote in clear and concise sentences that didn't use big words or scary business lingo, they wrote the book as if they were having a conversation with you.

The advice given in Rework is very practical, and most of it can be applied pretty quickly. Two pieces of advice they the authors give really struck me right away: workaholics and resumes. I won't spoil it for you, but I will say that the workaholics chapter really opened my eyes to some of the things that I try to do that really weren't right (i.e. staying up late a lot).

The only negative? I wish this book was longer. Not the chapters or anything, because I love how short and to the point it was. I wish there was more advice given in Rework because I enjoyed reading it so much, that it left me wanting more.

I would recommend this book to anyone who needs to manage a team or a business, because it cuts out the garbage and gives you real world advice.

I hope you enjoyed my first book review. I almost forgot: you can also follow me on Twitter, @GalacticGirlx2 for even more insights into what it is like to be an advertising student.

Morning Brew

I'm sitting in Second Cup right now, sipping my white chocolate chiller and listening to Paul Anka sing a cover of Bon Jovi. Today is great: I've got a team meeting today to discuss our research project (hence the reason I'm at Second Cup), and it's still the weekend. Tomorrow will be even better. My team and I are are going to an ad agency to get our questions answered about a problem that we were assigned in school. We have to pitch our solution to the problem at the end of August.

I've finished reading a book, so my first book review will be up later today. I will be reviewing Rework, which is all about how to manage a business. You might think it that it doesn't have anything to do with advertising, but it actually does. I will explain more when I post my review.

Well, it's back to work now. I will also post tomorrow all about going to the agency.

Bye for now!

Great insights lead to great ads

Insights are what make ads work. Without them, ads won't speak to who they are targeting. A great insight for the Snickers campaign was that people in the target group act really cranky and whiny when they are hungry. That's why they chose to use the actors that they did. Check out the latest commercial from Snickers below. I love their campaign, and how well it speaks to the target.

Welcome to my blog

This is my blog. Who am I? I am a Creative Advertising student at Seneca College.  I will be blogging about you guessed it, advertising.  Not only will I share my opinions on ads, my life as a student, and news, but I will also be posting book reviews related to advertising. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. And don't worry, future posts will be better than this.